The UCD Centre for the Study of Higher Education is delighted to welcome Prof. Dr. Hannes Rösler, LL.M. (Harvard), from the University of Siegen in Germany. Who will provide a workshop on the topic: Students As Consumers Under EU And National Consumer Protection Law

Please note:

This will be an in-person workshop, numbers are currently limited to 20.

Venue:UCD Sutherland School of Law, Room L244

Please use the (opens in a new window)Eventbrite link to book a place for the in-person workshop.

Please use the (opens in a new window)Webinar Registration to indicate if you wish to attend virtually.

Students As Consumers Under EU And National Consumer Protection Law

In this talk, we will explore the intersection of higher education and consumer protection law and what this means for students, legal educators and universities.

We will examine the key EU legal frameworks, including Article 165 TFEU, which promotes student mobility and academic recognition and the Charter of Fundamental Rights (Article 14 CFR), which guarantees the right to education. But what happens when a student becomes a consumer?

How do EU consumer protection laws, such as the Unfair Contract Terms Directive (93/13/EEC) and the Consumer Rights Directive (2011/83/EU), impact educational contracts, especially in the context of distance learning?

We will explore ECJ case law, including landmark cases such as Faccini Dori and Karel de Grote, which extended consumer protection to students engaging in contractual relationships with educational institutions. The talk will also examine the role of the German Distance Learning Protection Act (FernUSG) in shaping student rights within the context of digital education and online learning platforms. This session invites discussion on the legal protections available to students and the challenges that educational institutions face in this complex regulatory environment.

About the speaker

Prof. Dr. Hannes Rösler,LL.M. (Harvard) is a Professor of Civil Law, International Private Law and Comparative Law at the University of Siegen in Germany. He is also the Director of the Institute of Media and Communications Law (IMKR) in Siegen. From 2004 to 2013, he served as a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg. Before that, Hannes Rösler was a Research Assistant at the Institute for Comparative Law in Marburg and a law clerk in Frankfurt am Main. He earned his Dr. iur. in 2003 for his book on European consumer law from Marburg University, where he had graduated in 1998, after completing a year of Erasmus studies at the London School of Economics. In 2004, he received an LL.M. from Harvard Law School. In 2012, the University of Hamburg awarded him his Habilitation for his post-doctoral thesis on the European Court of Justice and European private law. He has held interim professorships at the Universities of Freiburg, Bonn and Frankfurt (Oder) and has held visiting positions abroad, including at UNIDROIT, Oxford University, New York University, the University of Cambridge, as well as universities in France, Italy, Turkey, Brazil, China and Japan. Hannes Rösler has published extensively on German, European and international private and procedural law. See for more information(opens in a new window)https://www.wiwi.uni-siegen.de/rechtswissenschaften/roesler/en.